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Content Conference 2001
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| Session Report: After noting that certain attendees and speakers had been forced by current events to miss the Content Summit, Norbert Specker set out to frame the conference within this year’s starkly different context. For one thing, he pointed out, after the attacks of September 11, it is more clear than ever that content is still vitally necessary. Finding the silver lining of these dark-clouded times, Norbert recalled that he originally started the conference in order to meet all smart people in the business of content, and expressed hope that the more intimate size of this year’s conference would allow everyone a better chance to have discussions in greater depth. Then turning his attention to the malaise of the economy, Norbert again sought an upside, and pointed out that slower times offer time for more studied consideration. "For many of us, the pace of the last few years left a lot of loose ends," he said. "There were lots of concepts that never got a chance to be developed, because things were moving too fast." Now, he suggested, we can perhaps return to those ideas and discover new opportunities. |
Andante e sustenuto: A second glance at old and new content revenue concepts for traditional content providers, small and tall. Increasing the share of your customer's mind (and his wallet) by expanding your services and building on existing relationships.
Downloads:
text by Robert S. Cauthorn / 51kB
video interview by Robert S. Cauthorn / 9260kB
Powerpoint Presentation by Bruce Annan / 6907kB
Active file for ppt presentation by Bruce Annan / 301kB
| Session Report: Bruce Annan: Annan started by introducing his company, Bell Globe Media, a major Canadian media conglomerate that includes CTV, the nation's largest private TV network, and the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper. The interactive branch takes in a third of all the online advertising in Canada and includes Sympatico, Canada's largest portal, the finance site GlobeInvestor and Workopolis.com, a recruitment and job-seekers site. A joint venture between the Globe and Mail and its main competitor, the Toronto Star, Workpolis incorporates job ads from the two newspapers but also uses a software bot to scour ads from the internet sites of clients who have signed up for the $CN 15,000 "all you can eat" recruitment package. Other specialized applications include a state-of-the-art system that includes applicant screening and automatically responds to applications on behalf of companies, plus a system that allows job-seekers to track their candidatures at various companies, and to manage their resumes online. The results are impressive: 68% of all users have applied for a job and 47.5% got first interviews. Best of all, perhaps, breaking even will occur in 2001 and a comfortable profit is expected in 2002. "Content alone is not king," Annan declared. "Content plus interactivity is king. The secret is applications, not publication." Applying that principal to finance, Globeinvestor allows all manner of stock and portfolio tracking, including setting up immediate notification of stock fluctuations past set price ceilings (or floors), high-volume trading and news announcements. Again, Annan boasted solid numbers: 1,250,000 online stock lists, 650,000 portfolios, and unique monthly visitors at 700,000. Revenue is expected to double in 2002 over 2001, primarily due to the introduction of several layers of subscriptions that will offer real-time stock prices as their primary attraction. Questions from the audience focused on the exact structure of the agreement between the two papers. As Annan explained each paper must carry the cost of uploading ads to Workopolis from their print classifieds; how and whether they pass along that cost to customers is their own decision. Two audience members questioned whether the site wouldn't cannibalize the papers' job sections. Annan responded, "With cannibalization at least you still get some calories, which is better than when the competition gets the calories. There's a certain amount of money being spent online and that money would be going away from the paper in any case, so it's better that it stay in the same group." Robert Cauthorn: This was a remote session in which George Shirk of Wired News performed an interview with Cauthorn, which was displayed in a RealPlayer format. Cauthorn stressed that the WTC attacks have proven online news as a mass medium, citing figures that 80 percent of all Americans used some form of online news to get information about the events on September 11, more than radio and second only to TV, which was at 98%. "This supports our message: Online is a mass-media buy without the mass-media price tag," he said. "It's important for us to realize that we are a mass media and mass media can make money." Like radio, he said, internet sites with a geographic angle need to focus on delivering local value and thereby securing "main street" advertisers. "We're getting liquor stores advertising now that used to do radio ads," he said. "You live and die with how local you can be, and the internet can be the most local media of all."(In a sign of how badly the new economy's star has fallen, the Bay Area-based Cauthron also cautioned, "We think it's important to get away from dotcom revenue, which was like drug money—it was thrown about with great abandon and has no sticking power.") Shirk then turned the topic to the relationship between SFgate and its Hearst stable mate, the San Francisco Chronicle. Cauthorn noted that the paper's ads and classifieds will be posted online and made searchable. Readers will also be able to register their various consumer interests through a "personal shopper" application in order to be notified if particular items come up for sale within a certain price range. As he explained, this offers an interesting twist: "Now, when people are registering their interest, we can solicit ads based on actual needs. This benefits everyone, since there might be 10,000 consumers looking for boots right now and we didn't know that." Finally, Cauthorn noted that the site will feature a self-service advertising-creation app, aimed at people who do not have the resources or know-how to create banner ads—the whole process of placing online adds will be conducted online. |
Infographics were used in abundance during and after the attack. Did they really help to understand what happened? Or did they obscure the view? Gloss over the things that could not be explained? Were they accurate? How difficult is it to not have only good looking but trustworthy infographics? A discussion that is relevant for everybody who deals in content as infographics represent the visual content.
Abstract:
A graphic is a complement of the information content of the web site. In newspapers we have to read statisc layouts and graphics. Now we can move them like little cartoons and allow the reader to interact with them. But we must not forget that the content and the news graphics works always togheter to tell a story, so they do not have to tell the same information.
A graphics is information, but moving, sound and time can be used to explain too, to add more information or to emphasize the content. This is the objetive.
If we add to a new a beautiful graphic with nice presentation, good looking, nice colors and things that appears and disappears on the screen, music or specials effects sounds, we´ll have a big file that does not explain anything and is to big to download in moments like the eleventh of september when all the servers were saturated and all the media online had to clean their frontpage to make them operative.
There were to many graphics in these weeks, but How many of them were accurate?. Of course the reader see only his news channel. He does not read all the newspapers. If he could do it (without die) he could see how the contents change around a little truth (there was a terrorist attack in the EEUU).
At the web we have to tell stories faster, but we can not lie. We have to make graphics faster than the traditional newspaper graphics departaments, but we can not invent.
We can fall in a mistake when we draw something at the print edition, like an arrow in the wrong direction, a false scale, wrong drawing or a bad information in the text. At the web we have to increase the posibility of be wrong when we move something, add a wrong action to a button or a link or make the text content in pass time and we use the graphics more than one day.
| Session Report: Norbert introduced this panel by suggesting that the attacks on the WTC changed and re-defined the online medium in much the same way that the assassination of JFK re-defined television. Originating in the newspaper world, Infographics are an important element in media in general and have traveled onto the net, where they have become animated, often using Flash. Rafael Höhn, Infographics Designer from El Pais, Spain produced high level of quality of Flash animations that were later syndicated to America. On Sept 11, of 600,000 visits to the El Pais site, 100,000 were to the flash animations. And that number only grew. Unfortunately Höhn was unable to attend due to a bombing the previous day near his home in Madrid, and then there was some trouble with technology, so the fair attendees could not see the flash for themselves during this presentation. Here's how to check it out online: http://www.elpais.es/especiales/2001/atentados_eeuu/ |
This session will give a plethora of ideas and approaches on how to retain customers, generate revenue and how to market content ventures.
Abstract:
A whirlwind tour of ten revenue generation and retention ideas from around the online world.
| Session Report: In September 2000, Business a.m. was the first daily newspaper to be launched since 100 years in Scotland. But it was the tenth iteration of the Swedish publisher Bonnier's Dagens Industry concept. With a team of over 70 journalists, it had more reporters reporting on business than many other newspapers had reporting on all news. And it was probably the first time where the fully active site launched the same day as the paper. Working with a bare-bones marketing budget, the site used a series of imaginative ideas to drive traffic, including a "Directors League," which tracked the country's business tycoons based upon the net value of all the companies on whose boards they sit. Another coup was being Scotland's first AvantGo provider. "Be the first at something, anything, and you'll get unbelievable amounts of free press," said O'Callaghan, continuing on to explain that the paper always seeks out new technologies to partner its content with in showcase situations. But her best tool has been very low-tech. The paper's daily email digest "a.m. Essentials" has grown to 8,000 names. "Don't underestimate email marketing.," O'Callaghan counsels. "It isn't sexy, it's not glamorous. But it's effective—it lands in people's mailbox first thing every morning." Her biggest lesson, she said is that content is not the same as hard news. Starting with no archive of old material to leverage, Business a.m. had to create other reasons to visit, which included searchable directories (e.g. the Directors League), ubiquitous services (weather forecasts, currency converter, etc) and The Exchange (an interactive community with expert panels and weekly chats with business personalities). In terms of building its brand, O'Callaghan said, she stresses promoting unique content and prominently positioning it, not running it under wire copy or yesterday's news. O'Callaghan also stressed the leveraging of both content and content-providers. Syndication to various corporate sites represents a revenue stream, as does having journalists moderate chats for clients. Business a,m has also started to conduct surveys of its significant registered user base, charging clients anywhere from £300 to £500 per question included in such polls. But the idea that got the most buzz going involved so called "Drop-dialing" in which modem users can opt to switch over to a premium line (like those used for ringtone or sex or astrology services) in order to pay for services. It's a relatively unintrusive and easy solution to the payment issue, much like France's Minitel system. The drawback: it only works on dial-up connections, so it's purely an interim model until broadband arrives. |
Content value changes in function of its life time and distribution options - gold digging in the company vaults. The film industry has it down to a tee: how can we squeeze the most out of a movie by handing it down the value chain from the movies to the videostores to the tv stations to the department stores. Most content producers have not properly figured out the life time value of their content. By not thinking of it while producing the content, many alleys can maybe not be explored. Here is a detailed look at the value poposition of various content over time and how you can improve on it.
Abstract:
Gerd Leonhard: 1) How technology impacts the different 'stages' of content
2)Backgrounder on IP Commerce, and the factors impacting on it
3)Evolution of Revenue Models
4) The corner stones of Managing Digital Assets
5) Key success factors
Downloads:
powerpoint presentation by Gerd Leonhard / 709kB
| Session Report: The panel examined the issue of content recycling, how to sell recycled content and make money. Duffen discussed a project his company, Newsplayer, has done with the famous British telejournalist Sir David Frost. Sir David, as Duffen pointed out, "may know a lot about interviewing public figures and the internal workings of the television industry but didn't know where to start when it came to putting the material he owns online." The collaboration with Frost, allowed the vast library of valuable content to be digitized and two different products were developed: a B2C jukebox (video on demand) and B2B for licensing segments for use in commercial productions. Frost.tv provides broadcast-quality streaming video of the interviews. Not only are the interviews themselves searchable, but also the topics discussed in the interviews. One of the pitfalls of trying to launch such projects, Duffen noted, is the very unpredictability of the net business. "People are afraid that users will be able to capture the streamed content and redistribute it," he said. "But I can never promise that it won't happen for a short time." Gerd Leonhard of San Francisco's Licencemusic, which sells music for audio-visual productions ranging from commercials to Hollywood films and represent about 250 different music labels. Leonhard painted a strong portrait of music in the coming digital age, where entire record collections would be downloadable in seconds and today's hard drives will be the size of a cell phone. "Fast streaming (wired or wireless) will be anytime and anywhere," he said. "The question that arises is whether access is ownership." And ownership will become an enormously more complex issue. A critical point is that content owners are competing not only with each other but also with the descendants of Napster: "Every type of content will be digitized, legally or illegally. The question is not whether we like that or not. It's a fact. And if no competitive legal offer is made, then piracy will take over." In terms of revenues, he predicted that the Internet content business will be a hybrid of everything from licensing of content to advertising, rather than as single model. |
| Resources: The AIM Group of Peter Zollman published an 8 page report on "Online Content Sales" (excluding syndication) after interviewing 70 newspaper operations in the US (May 2001). It will cost you your contact details, but else it is free here. Key deduction is that selling content from the archive is in a sad state overall. The paper will mark the excact year when newspapers were not making any profit while selling their archives. As I am fairly confident, that changes in this area are inevitable. Taking suit of the one exception, the Daily Oklahoman brings in US$ 100'000 per year through the archive doors. All on its own. A good study object... (From Netwanderings) |
Developing successful and working models for your advertisers is an act of creativity – and persuasiveness. Bundling a variety of media channels and advertising/sponsoring options in to an offer that has a chance to prove itself in the market place; this can be achieved. Here is how.
Downloads:
presentation (pdf) / 2606kB
| Session Report: Martin Radelfinger, CEO of the Swiss company AdLink, came with a harsh message: Online advertising has failed to live up to the various sunny scenarios once projected—and if the medium is ever to work, then sites themselves need to take the problem in hand. Historically, he explained, everyone from advertisers to agencies to sites have viewed this problem over-simplistically. Functionally, advertising first generates brand awareness and interest; only after the user click generates a direct response and a deeper interest comes a lead—and eventually online sales. Yet no campaign can do all this in one fell swoop. "Most people have never differentiated between direct marketing and online advertising," Radelfinger pointed out. "If I'm trying to build my brand I'm not interested in the cost per click-through." Thus, the industry's various metrics—page views, click-through, impressions and so on—have widely varying degrees of relevance to client campaigns. Radelfinger traced the history of online advertising from static banner ads to today's "emmercials" running in pop-up windows, by way of "skyscrapers," transaction banners and other innovations. None of these have proved to be the panacea for online advertising's essential ailment: It isn't selling. "If we applied a purely economic model to online ad buys, then the CPM would be something like 5 euro cents, not 20 euros," he estimated. "We're still in a situation where 70 to 99 percent goes unsold." Worse yet, many clients are either disillusioned with the whole medium or fail to grasp its potential. "Most are not sophisticated enough to take advantage of the differentiated formats available," Radelfinger said. "So the sales people from the platforms have to go the clients and make the case. They can't count on the ad agencies to do that, because often it's harder to educate the agencies than the clients. But an educated client can go light a fire under the agency's ass." What remains critical today, then, is to sit down with clients, rather than just reading off rate sheets. "We have to learn to evaluate businesses, understand what they want and work toward those goals with hybrid formats," he said. "And we have to be willing to share the risk involved in their campaigns." |
| Resources: Although somewhat dated (February 2001) this Morgan Stanley study on the effectiveness of online advertising gives a good overview. |
The Telegraph will let us have a detailed look at its cross media packages for advertisers and the underlaying strategies
Downloads:
Presentation / 3375kB
| Session Report: Hollinger Telegraph New Media launched in February 2000 as a holding company from the Daily Telegraph. Currently boasting 34 million monthly page impressions, it includes the Daily Telegaph's site, Telegraph.co.uk, as well as sites such as the women's portal Handbag.com. It's a multiple media proposition, including newspaper, Web, PDA, WAP and SMS. Obviously, Drayton said, there's a strong advantage to the linkage with the paper, because the Telegraph drives readers online and vice-versa. And Telegraph.co.uk offers support to the newspaper by offering a platform for additional information that could not fit in the paper. For example, the site recently ran an unedited transcript of an interview with prime minister Tony Blair, which the paper had been forced to trim down for space. In the long run, Drayton predicts, any number of current newspaper staples could migrate online, especially those that are inherently impossible to keep up-to-date in print, such as racing forms and stock-price tables. The site has also served as the home for any number of reader contests, including a Fantasy Football league. While this contest had been free for years, this year the Telegraph decided to charge a fee, and expected to lose three-quarters of its 75,000 players in the process. In fact, only about half chose to quit rather than pay the small fee. On the other side of the gender line, Handbag.com has been quite successful, reflecting the fact that the number of wired women is growing even faster than male online users. In a parallel to women's magazines such as Vogue (or even more, Lucky) handbag.com visitors apparently enjoy web advertising; 29 percent found it useful, more than twice the general UK rate; advertorial and sponsorship of stories are major components for Handbag. For example, Majestic Wine stores sponsored the handbag.com wine section and runs polls for readers, and the average sale for Majestic through handbag.com is 44£, significantly higher than their average online sale. In the Q&A period, Katja Riefler, CEO of Germany's Risolutions forcefully raised the issue of whether Handbag's coziness with advertisers endangered the Telegraph's reputation. Drayton drew a sharp line between the two entities, stating flatly that Handbag.com does not have the same editorial integrity to preserve as the Telegraph—but also that handbag.com assiduously marks advertorial as such.. Finally, asked how adventurous the site was in pursuing new technologies such as Bluetooth and wireless LAN distributions, Drayton said, "I do think about cutting-edge technologies, but only on my own time. A lot of media companies have wasted a hell of a lot of money trying to be technology drivers, and quite often they ended up with blood on their faces." |
Can existing content providers expect substantial new sources of revenues in the mobile market? Should they build "content mobilizing" companies? It is obvious: Your content needs to be mobile, it is the only way to follow your users around. It is also what your advertisers are starting to find out. Now, what kind of offerings can you develop that do the double trick - serve your brand and your users....and be irresistible for your advertisers? In addition: A look at location based content value propositions.
Abstract:
Mobile content services will be part of publishing. Products are not only information but more and more different kind of services. United Magazines (Finland) is a forerunner in developing these services. They are produced together with ISP and other partners. They are based on SMS since the audience knows that systems best. The user figures are growing and we expect that SMS will provide substantial revenue in next year.
Downloads:
yk_zurich.ppt / 560kB
| Session Report: Hailing from the telephony paradise of Finland, Harri Saukkomaa has been working in content for 25 years. He now works for a major magazine and general publishing house in Finland, United, which has been exploring mobile services and SMS content, a natural topic for the mobile-heavy Finland. Some of the United programs have included: an SMS service for book-club members who wish to inform United if they do not want to receive the monthly selection; word hunt and guessing games with instructions listed on two pages in the magazines; and various votes/polls/contest (where SMS is more heavily used than either emails or postcards). One popular service is a pregnancy calendar that keeps mothers posted by SMS on the normal neonatal developments for their stage of pregnancy. With a combination of chagrin and modesty, Saukkomaa confessed that some of the most successful programs are blatantly unoriginal, such as logo/ringtone lines and a dating service that evolved out of a more highbrow concept for a confessions-and-wishes service. Saukkomaa offered ten commandments for the audience when moving into the mobile space, including: "Get paid"; "Do not trust the first wave technology (move the technology risk to somebody else)"; and "Follow the market, not your own ideas about the market." His last commandment was de rigueur new-economy speak: "Change your commandments every two hours." And on that note, Day 1 of the panels ended. |
| Resources: Dan Gillmor on mobile applications in Finland (July 01). Then there is member of the executive advisory board of Interactive Publishing Bruno Giussani, who just finished a book, published by Random House, called Roam subtitled: making sense of the wireless internet. A "must read" as Le Temps put it. |
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